From ripples to waves
by demonkid446
Summary: When a mysterious woman arrives at Alexandria on a mission of some sort,Dagger goes missing, now Zidane must go alongside his allies once again,as it appears that a bigger plot that transcends their world is unfolding Zidane x Oc
1. Chapter 1

I present to you the new and improved From ripples to waves

I own nothing...exept my OC, she's mine, you can't have her.

* * *

Zidane let out an irritated huff as he walked down the streets of Alexandria. '_Where the hell is he?_' he thought to himself, briefly looking in the pub. He groaned upon realizing that the person he was searching for was not there. Turning and walking out, he looked back towards the area he hadn't looked. '_I thought he would steer clear of the castle for a while…but I guess not._' He thought, walking towards the castle.

…..

'_Gotta go! Gotta go! Gotta go!'_ Puck thought as he ran through the halls of the extravagant castle, shoving anyone who dared to step in his way. It didn't take long before the Burmecian prince could hear footsteps running after him. "Oh Damn!" he yelled, turning the corner sharply and running straight into Zidane, knocking them both over. Zidane shook his head to gather his wits, though when he did, Puck had already up and ran away.

"H-hey! Get back here!" Zidane shouted, following the boy. "Puck! C'mon!" Zidane called.

"No chance, it's _mine _I found it fair and square!" the boy called over his shoulder.

"Looking through Dagger's chest and taking it because you thought it looked cool does not count as _finding _it!" Zidane shouted, increasing his speed. Of course he could catch the boy without hesitation, but if he did Puck's punishment would surely be worse, Burmecian prince or not. "C'mon, let's compromise, just give back the pumice and they won't be as mad!" Zidane tried again.

"No way! You gotta catch me first!" Puck replied with a snort, pushing past a maid.

"Ok" Zidane said simply, before running much faster and tackling Puck to the ground.

"Whoa! Hey let go!" Puck shouted, struggling against the headlock Zidane had put him in.

"This would go much smoother for you if you just stopped struggling, trust me." Zidane advised, already hearing the Pluto knights catching up to them.

"LET ME GO!" Puck screamed, struggling harder, but Zidane, needless to say, was much stroger than him and struggling only made him tighten his hold. It wasn't long before Steiner appeared at Zidane's side, panting and wheezing.

"Y-your majesty…you've caught him." Steiner said between deep breaths.

"Yeah, yeah, and quit it with the "your majesty" ok? I'm not anymore" Zidane said, releasing Puck to the pluto knights, but not before taking the pumice. "Well," he started, looking at the gem "better get this back to Dagger." Steiner nodded and followed the former king.

…

"Thank you Zidane…" Dagger said sincerely when they arrived at the audience chamber

"Don't mention it" Zidane said offhandedly, plopping down in the chair next to her. "Ugh… I hate these chairs, how long do I have to act as king?" he asked her.

Dagger gave a sigh of exasperation before replying "Just until we announce the divorce at the autumn festival next week, then you'll be a trusted consultant, like Vivi." With a small smile.

"Hmm…" Zidane nodded, thinking over the past few months, he and Dagger had ended their relationship on good terms, granted, staying friends directly afterwards had been a bit difficult and awkward, it came naturally to them now. They both agreed that Zidane wouldn't stay king, though Dagger would stay queen. Zidane was to be a trusted royal consultant, a person whom the royal family ran all their decisions by, Vivi was one also. After a few seconds of thought, Zidane jumped out of his chair suddenly, "And I know just how to pass the time!" he shouted, making to run, but stopped short as Dagger grabbed his tail. "Yeouch!" he shrieked.

"Where do your plans take you?" Dagger asked firmly, giving Zidane a look.

"In the city?" he replied cautiously.

"Where in the city?"

"Around the pub."

"And how drunk will these plans make you?"

"Not _that _drunk!"

"Really?"

"Yep!" Zidane smirked.

"…..Take Vivi with you."

…

"Ummm… Zidane?" Vivi warily started, watching the thief down another shot of liquor. The blonde didn't answer, rather turned to face the mage. "Are you sure you should be drinking so much?"

"Not to worry! I know my limits." Zidane proudly replied.

"That's not saying you won't purposely go over them." Was Vivi's hushed reply, Zidane barely heard it, but as he did, he smirked. Some might say it was a bad thing that Zidane Tribal was rubbing off on the ever innocent Vivi Orunitia, but Zidane himself was proud. With Vivi's sons in the Black mage village, he spent most of his time with Zidane, not that Zidane minded, Vivi was the little brother he never had, and because of this, Zidane felt the need to pass on knowledge to the mage. Of course his specific knowledge was being absorbed _very _slowly. On the off chance that Vivi made witty remarks or comebacks, 9 out of 10 times it was barely audible, the kid would be forever shy.

"Aww, c'mon Vivs, would I do that?" Zidane asked with a fake pout.

"Yes." Vivi replied simply.

"You know me all to well."

…

Zidane winced at his headache, he couldn't really remember _how _Vivi got him to stop drinking, all he knew is that is was night time, and the mage had went back to the castle, saying that he was tired. Zidane was tired to, and his head was in pain. "Damn Vivi…what did you do to my poor head?" he asked no one, as he walked through the streets back towards the castle. On his way though, he spotted something moving towards the alleys, illuminated by the street lamps. It was a figure in a black robe. Confused, and a little suspicious as to why someone in a black robe would be stalking around at night, he ran to catch the person. "Hey!" he called out, the person stopped, but did not turn around. "What are ya doing out at this time?" he asked the person, whom he determined to be woman.

"I could ask the same as you." Came the voice.

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one with the hood on." Zidane retorted.

"But you are the one with the twin knives." The woman pointed out, not even turning to look at him. Zidane looked at her in confusion, yes, he had his daggers, but she didn't even look at him to see them.

"Hey, can you turn around?" Zidane asked, now being more suspicious "and take the hood off." The woman complied and Zidane felt his breath hitch in his throat, '_she's gorgeous'_. Her face was smooth and without a flaw, her skin pale under the street lamps. She had thin lips and eyes on the narrow side, her hair was a very light blue color, bordering on silver, which brought him back to her eyes. Her eyes were a silver-like color and Zidane wondered briefly if she was blind, but her eyes were focused intently on him. Zidane had to avert his gaze for a second to gather his wits that seemd to escape him at the moment. The woman raised an eyebrow before speaking

"Something on my face?" she asked, deciding to humor him. Zidane made a mental note of her voice, slightly low-pitched but distinctly female, scathing and a tiny bit scratchy, the voice of someone who preferred solitude. It wasn't until she cleared her throat that Zidane answered.

"Nothing on your face at all, it's just a little odd to see a pretty woman traveling through alleys at night" he explained. The woman's stoic expression did not change, as if she didn't hear him. He was about to speak again when she interrupted.

"You're the former king, correct?" Zidane froze at this. Sure, he was the former king as Dagger and him ended their relationship, but that information was not public yet, so the cold woman should not have known..

"How did you know that?" he asked, once again wary of the woman.

"It's my job to know these things." She said simply, turning and walking around a corner.

"Whoa! Hey wait!" Zidane called, trailing after, but as he himself turned the corner, he found that the woman was no longer in sight. Knowing better than to belive she just disappeared, he climbed up a nearby ladder and stood on the roof of the building, his eyes scanning sharply for the woman. He did this for several minutes before finally coming down, a concerned look on his face. '_I lost her…that's impossible, she was walking slowly.' _He thought, pillaging nearby barrels and crates. After another half hour, of searching, he gave up. "Damn.."

….

Vivi was organizing his card deck when Zidane walked in. Catching his troubled gaze, Vivi asked "What's wrong?" Zidane shook his head and plopped down on the large bed next to Vivi's large bed, letting out a sigh.. He laid their for about a minute, but he could feel Vivi's unrelenting gaze on him.

"You haven't seen anyone suspicious around the castle have you?" he asked the mage, rolling on his side to face him.

"No, is everything alright?" Vivi asked.

"I'm not sure Vivi, but I hope so."

* * *

Why did i put Puck in the beginning? I needed something upbeat to start the story and I couldn't figure out who Zidane would be chasin, so my friend says, "hey how about Puck?" and there you go! the beginning chase scene, I actually already have the first 4 chapters written, it's just a matter of finding time to update. Btw reviews make me happy, but only when they're NOT flames, you flame, you're banned, simple as that.


	2. Chapter 2

_I own nothing...exept my OC, she's mine, you can't have her._

* * *

The next day was drenched in concern for Zidane, he'd have like to think that she was just a relative of a worker, or a worker he'd never saw before, or even a noble that was spoken to about the divorce. But he couldn't get over her eyes, cold, with no compassion, sharp and calculating, actually, that was the whole atmosphere around her, even though he had only spoken to her briefly, she unnerved him, and he was determined to find her. It was with this in mind that he had Steiner increase security and so far, nothing had happened. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid" he said to himself as he walked through the gardens, not noticing the female nurse in a long white mage robe slipping into the castle, the nurse with a blood-stained knife.

...

Vivi walked at a leisurely pace through the servant's quarters. Dagger had asked him to escort a new nurse into the castle, and he was just about to her door when it opened, revealing a woman in a white mage robe that went to her ankles, she looked to be quite irritated.

"Ummm...hi." He started awkardly, " I'm your escort for the Queen."

"That's nice.." the woman spoke, sarcasm dripping from her voice. Vivi inwardly gulped, who was this woman?

"Yeah...um..." Vivi took a small step back "So we should probably get going...umm"

"Kristin" was the simple reply

"Oh...Kristin...well we should-"

"Sleep." the woman said abruptly. Any words Vivi had were gone instantly as he was brought to his knees by a powerful feeling of dizziness. He inwardly berated himself for not wearing an accessory impervious to sleep. He resisted the nearly unbearable drowsiness and moved to stand up, when the feeling increased in magnitude. "You're pretty resistant to magic..." he heard the woman say. The feeling increased to the point where Vivi's eyesight was blurring completely, and his eyelids felt like bricks. It wasn't long before the sleep spell took hims, and he fell into an incredibly deep and heavy sleep, falling to the ground with a thud.

Kristin cocked her head to the side, before taking the sleeping mage in her arms and taking him back into her room. She placed him onto the bed next to a lifeless body. "Well, that's that, sorry you have to be in a corpse's company." Kristin apologized, tugging the knife from the girl's neck and walking out, locking the door. She swiftly walked up from the servant's quarters and outside to the courtyard, making a left, she entered the castle, concealing her knife after she was in.

She walked up the carpeted steps, passing by Branhe's portrait completely, and turned to walk through the hall_. ' Let's see..._' she thought, pulling out an ink tip feather and several bottles of ink. Sitting on the railing, she pulled out and unfolded a large sheet of parchment That had a detailed drawing of the courtyard and garden on the edges, but the middle was blank, dipping her pen inside the ink, she began sketching out the main hall, making several notes as she did so. There were no guards around, as it was the lunch hour. It took Kristin a half hour to sketch the main hall. Concealing her pens and her self-made map, she turned walked for the audience hall, when she arrived, she paused outside the door, putting on a facade of cheerfulness. Knocking on the door, she heard a slightly muffled "come in" from the other side, she opened the door and walked in.

"Hello" Dagger said politely, "you're the new nurse?" she asked, looking around for Vivi.

"Yes, I am, it's an honor to work here!" Kristin smiled.

"Yes...well, where is Vivi, he was supposed to escort you." Dagger questioned nicely. Kristin made a show of being shocked.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I completely forgot about an escort, I left early to take a stroll around the Garden, you have an excellent selection of various roses." she smiled brightly. Dagger was easily fooled, and gave a smile back.

"It's alright, and thank you, I do have a weakness for roses" she assured. "Well, why don't we put you to work?"

Kristin nodded, "I'll just go and get my rod, maybe I'll run into this Vivi on the way." she spoke happily. Dagger just nodded, looking over at Beatrix who was on her right side, whom nodded as well. Kristin turned and left the room, her fake cheer dissipating instantly as she through the door. It didn't take her at all long to get back to the servant quarters, upon entering her room, she saw that the real Kristin's blood had spilled from the wound onto the bed. Kristin sighed, and decided to leave the dead body as it was. Instead settling on a silence spell for Vivi in case he woke up earlier than expected, which she expected to be several days due to the power she put in it. "Sweet dreams." she grabbed a nearby stardust rod and left out.  
...

Dagger eyed the woman next to her oddly, she smelled of blueberries. Now, there was always a chance that she was merely wearing perfume, but if Dagger got too close, the scent would disappear and her nose would quickly begin to burn, a tell tale sign of magic. An individuals magic level could be detected by other mages in different ways, specifically one of the five senses. Most mages were trained in the art of detecting magic when learning it.

Dagger herself had chosen scent to train with, as she didn't want a taste in her mouth, or to hear anything odd, and if the magic was strong, using the sense of touch could be dangerous, and being able to actually see another mage's magic field was not only very difficult to do, it was also somewhat annoying once one had learned it. At least that's what her white magic instructor had told her, to inhibit the ability many mages that had it often wore special glasses with enchanted lenses so the constant sight of another's aura wouldn't be a problem. If Dagger was correct, a scent of flowers, spices, fruit , or trees was a sign of powerful magic, Vivi always had a scent of cinnamon, but it didn't begin to burn her nose until his magic had reached much more mighty levels. Spices corresponded with Black magic, fruit with White magic, trees with blue magic (Quina had always smelled like oak and various foods), and flowers connected with magic that Dagger had never personally encountered until being around Kuja, he had a strong lilac scent.

Now what made Dagger think that Kristin wasn't just wearing perfume was that Dagger could smell all but trees on her. Blueberries were the strongest, but Dagger also picked up a cajun scent and briefly, the scent of lilacs as well. Kristin, according to her magic field was an incredibly experienced caster, weilding white, black and forbidden magic all at once. But then why would she need to be trained? The rat Kristin was healing had a slightly large cut on it that was knitting together very slowly with a weak cure spell. According to the burning in Dagger's nose as she watched over the process, Kristin should have been able to invoke a complete Full-Life , a spell Dagger herself could not even begin to cast, yet her magic seemed weak. Was she holding back intentionally?

Dagger looked over at Beatrix who stood a few feet away, they were all in the courtyard where the day's training was in progress, there were other nurses practising and some pluto knights sparring as well. Beatrix was eyeing Kristin funny as well, meaning she could at least smell the blueberries, the lilac and cajun scents seemed to be suppressed, so most likely the only reason Dagger could pick them up was because she was so close to Kristin. It was a bit suspicious, but Kristin had seemed genuine enough, and may have had a reason for suppressing her own magic field, so Dagger did not mention anything.

Little did she know, Kristin was paying attention to her magic field as well.

Kristin had given up on trying to suppress her white magic field, it was impossible to do when suppressing her black and forbidden magic fields while at the same time casting white magic and weakening it's actual strength, it took tremendous concentration and Kristin believed she wouldn't have to fake exhaustion by the end of the day. In spite of this, she needed to know Dagger's own magic field, the queen had the scent of apples, and it only very slightly tingled Kristin's nose, meaning Dagger was a powerful white mage, but that wasn't her primary specialty. The scent she was more interested in was the grave rose scent that was much stronger than the apple, the scent of Dagger's summoning magic.

It was stronger than the apples, and as such Kristin could conclude that Dagger had a variety of strong eidolons connected with her, something that had to be taken into account. Kristin closed her eyes. By eliminating one of the senses, a mage could heighten the sense they detected magic fields with, and Beatrix's pomagranet scented magic was soon detectable, not as much variety as Dagger's, but notably stronger. Kristin herself could detect magic with all of her senses at whim, she used scent mostly, but she could use all others, when she activated her eye senses the silver protective sheen that covered her irises would fade and her natural eye color would show. Some senses were sharper than others at detecting a certain magic, but at the moment, scent was the most convenient. Knowing what she needed to, Kristin focused all her attention back to the rat beneath her open palms, closing the cut all the way, sick of playing off her magic as weak.

The rat scrambled to it's feet and was quickly running away, Kristin watched it leave before turning to look at Dagger.

"Well done, Kristin, we'll try a few more exercises and then we'll be done." the queen spoke with a smile. Kristin smiled back at her.

"Of course."

...

"So what do you think?" Dagger asked Beatrix, sitting down on the red couch in her private quarters. They had just ended training and finished supper, Zidane had been interested in meeting the new nurse, but Kristin was either away from the castle or just not up for dining with everyone, Vivi was absent as well, not that it was strange for the black mage to go various places away from Alexandria, but he usually told somebody about it.

"She's definatly not as inexperienced as we thought she was." the holy knight responded.

"But why would she want to decieve us?" Dagger wondered aloud.

"Courtesy maybe?" Zidane chimed from his position next to the door. Dagger cocked her head to the side.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, " he began thoughtfully "We never actually ask the nurses if they can cast other magic besides white magic, she may just want to keep her destructive magic under wraps, it's not exactly a good look."

"Exactly," Steiner cut in, "It isn't a good look that she knows such magic and hides it, how do we know she's not plotting something?" he finished firmly. This was not out of the norm, Steiner had always been mistrusting.

"He has a point," Beatrix added "why else would she hide it and try to act like her healing abilities are weak?"

"_This,_" Zidane gestured his hands in a circle "What we're doing right now, talking about her behind her back being all suspicious." he walked over to sit next to Dagger "I'm sure she wouldn't like it if she knew, why can't we just talk to her about it?" Zidane crossed his arms "We might actually learn something about whether we can trust her or not by asking her questions." Dagger looked up in thought.

"Ok," she said, reaching a decision. "We'll continue training her for a few more days and then bring it up directly."

"Why after a few days?" Zidane questioned.

"Me and Beatrix will put more pressure on her, and see if we can get her to use the full extent of her white magic, I don't want to confront her right now, we should let her get her bearings around here first." Dagger explained. Zidane grinned.

"Sounds like a plan." he paused for a moment. "Let me talk to her one day, I might even be able to work something about her black and forbidden magic out of her." he offered with a sly smirk.

"And just how will you get her to be truthful?" Beatrix challenged. Zidane merely winked.

"I just have that affect on the ladies."

* * *

_I'm pretty proud of this chapter, please R&R truthfully but nicely pleaz :) a new chapter'll be on the way soon._


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